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The Barnes
Letters
Presented
by Stacy Brooks
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As many of
you may already know, Greg and Debra Barnes were recently declared
Suppressive by the Church of Scientology. RTC apparently views it
as a high crime for someone on OT 7 to object to being security
checked every six months, even though these "six-month checks"
(as they are fondly referred to by the 7s) violate an LRH technical
bulletin. Could it be that the $20,000 or more that each OT is required
to pay every six months for their sec check is more important to
RTC than technical purity?
After they were declared, the Barnes wrote a letter to the IAS,
which is the International Association of Scientologists, asking
for their money back. They had both paid for lifetime memberships,
a total of more than $40,000.
For those of you who are not familiar with the history of the IAS,
let me fill you in. Back in the late 1970s, Mary Sue Hubbard, Henning
Heldt, Duke Snider, and several other high-level Guardian's Office
execs were indicted for stealing government documents and a list
of other dirty tricks. To raise money for their defense, the
Guardian's Office created a new organization called the Safe Environment
Fund, or SEF. Everyone was told that the purpose of SEF was to create
a War Chest to fight Scientology's enemies.
There were big SEF briefings and all the public Scientologists had
to donate tremendous amounts of money to defend the GO execs. At
that time the people in charge of the global conspiracy to destroy
Scientology were not Bob Minton, the German government and the LMT.
Back then the U.S. government -- particularly the FBI -- was in
charge of it. (That was before the IRS rolled over and gave Scientology
its tax exemption and the U.S. government became Scientology's most
ardent defender.)
The money collected by SEF was used to cover the costs of all the
dirty tricks Scientology carried out to try (unsuccessfully) to
derail the criminal case against Mary Sue et al. A private investigator
named Dick Bast, for example, was hired to set up the judge in the
case, Judge Ritchey, with a prostitute to destroy his career. The
set-up worked beautifully, and Judge Ritchey had to remove himself
from the case. An article ran in one of Scientology's internal publications
proclaiming what a big win this was for Scientology's expansion
on the planet.
When DM took over Scientology in 1982 he changed the name of the
Guardian's Office to the Office of Special Affairs, and he changed
the name of the Safe Environment Fund to the International Association
of Scientologists. Today, it is the IAS, not SEF, that collects
millions of dollars in donations from Scientologists all over the
world. The money is still used for the same purpose -- to protect
Scientology from its enemies. Only now its enemies are Bob Minton,
Ursula Caberta, the LMT, etc. It is IAS monies that are being used
to harass and try to destroy these "enemies."
So Scientology does not want a spotlight on IAS, because IAS is
the Achilles heel of their precious U.S. tax exemption. This is
undoubtedly why the Barnes' request to IAS for a refund received
such prompt attention.
First Greg and Debra wrote a simple refund request without any elaboration. |
This is the
letter they received in response:
Greg and Debra Barnes
Clearwater, FL
33756
Dear Mr. & Mrs.
Barnes:
We are in receipt
of your request of a return of your donations to the IAS.
The rules of the IAS
clearly state that contributions are not refundable. This rule is set
forth on the IAS membership and donation forms. You acknowledged your
understanding of this policy when you signed these forms.
Please advise if
you have further informationregarding
this matter you would like me to consider.
Sincerely,
Lise Cohee
Legal Affairs Director
IAS Administrations
on behalf of the IAS
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